1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a musical performance device, a musical performance method, a storage medium and an electronic musical instrument by which an attack sound, which is musically important, can be emitted as intended even by a novice user's operation.
2. Description of the Related Art
An automatic musical performance device called a sequencer has been known. This device stores, in a memory, sequence data representing the pitch and sound emission timing of each note composing a musical piece for each of a plurality of tracks associated with musical performance parts (musical instrument parts), and sequentially reads out the sequence data for each track stored in the memory in synchronization with the tempo of the musical piece for playback (automatic musical performance). For example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (Kokai) Publication No. 2002-169547, this type of device has been disclosed, in which sequence data where a drum timbre and a non-drum timbre have been mixed in one track can be replayed.
In the field of dance music, there is a need for a musical performance method where the playback of a track of a desired musical performance part among a plurality of tracks during an automatic musical performance is turned ON/OFF in accordance with the “rhythm feeling” of the user's musical performance.
Specifically, it is desired that in an automatic musical performance device having a track ON/OFF function of stopping the playback of a target track specified by a user by a track-OFF operation and starting the playback of the sequence data of the target track at track-ON timing, a target track not being replayed is turned from OFF to ON and started to be replayed while a track other than the target track is being replayed.
However, in the above-described automatic musical performance device having the track ON/OFF function, when a target track (second music data) is subjected to a track-ON operation to start its playback while a track (first music data) other than the target track is being replayed, the following problem arises. This problem is described with reference to FIG. 10.
FIG. 10 is a diagram where the sequence data (here, in four-four time) of a plurality of tracks (1) to (n) associated with musical performance parts (musical instrument parts) are shown in time-series corresponding to a musical performance time TCT (horizontal axis) with the head of the musical piece as a starting point. Note that, among these tracks (1) to (n) tracks other than a target track (n) specified by a user are referred to as “other tracks”.
When the target track (n) specified by the user is set to a track-OFF state and the playback of the sequence data of each track other than the target track (n) is started from the head of the musical piece as shown in FIG. 10, the sequence data of the first measure in each of the other tracks is replayed from the head. On the other hand, since the target track (n) is in the track-OFF state, the first measure of the target track (n) is not replayed.
Here, if the user wising to perform a track-ON operation for the target track (n) at the head of the second measure performs a track-ON operation at delayed timing later than timing where the first beat of the second measure can be replayed, the sequence data e(n) of the first beat of the second measure in the target track (n) is not replayed, and the playback of the target track (n) is started from the sequence data f(n) of the second beat. As a result, since the first beat of the target track (n), which is musically important, is not replayed, a musically uncomfortable feeling occurs, and thereby musical performance effects are impaired.
That is, it is particularly difficult for a novice user to perform a track-ON or track-OFF operation for a target track (second music data) as intended.
The present invention has been conceived in light of the above-described problem. An object of the present invention is to provide a musical performance device, a musical performance method, a storage medium, and an electronic musical instrument by which an attack sound, which is musically important, can be emitted as intended even by a novice user's operation.